Lima, Peru

We arrived in Lima, Peru on the 20th after an 18 hour bus ride. I found the bus to be quite uncomfortable as it was a sleeper bus with deep reclining seats so there wasn´t much room to spare. Also, the woman infront of me kept reclining her seat fully without looking behind her so twice I had my head pinned down to me knees and other times I had her head practically in my lap - not an enjoyable way to travel, especially if you are claustrophobic. We were also 2 rows away from the toilets so the smells were quite horrific. Oh well, still better than some of the bus rides we endured in SE Asia!

¨Cholera - a shitty experience¨. That would be the title of Braeden´s blog if he had one. That´s right, Braeden contracted cholera - or so we believe - according to extensive on-line research. He has all the symptoms and it can be contracted from improperly handled food such as hamburger or any of the other questionable food he has eaten while traveling. We were going to try to find an English-speaking doctor here in Lima but clinics were closed over the weekend and he figured they would just tell him what he already knew - keep taking your antibiotics (doxycyclin), drink lots of fluids and wait for it to flush out of your system. At least he has been feeling better and has been able to see and experience Lima.

Our initial impression of Lima was ¨what a shithole¨ as you have to drive through extremely dirty areas of the city in order to get to the nicer areas such as the District of Miraflores which is where we have been staying at ´Lion Backpackers´hostel. It is a little more expensive (s./90 = approx. $30 USD/night) but we have hot water, a private bathroom and cable TV with several English channels. (We expected to pay more being back in the city and wanting to stay relatively close to the attractions and ammenities). We have managed to save some money by shopping at the local grocery store and using the kitchen at our hostel to make our own breakfast and dinner. There is seriously nothing like KD to bring down your budget and give you a good taste of home :)

During our time here we have managed to do quite a bit of sight-seeing (there is a lot to see!). We took a short bus tour around Miraflores as well as an extended bus tour around Lima (3 hours). We toured the ´Museo de la Inquisicion´including the basement where prisoners were once tortured as well as the ´Monasterio de San Francisco´which is famous for its catacombs and incredible library (unfortunately they would not let us take any pictures). We saw the ´Plaza de Armas´, the ´Archbishop´s Palace´ and the ´Palacio de Gobierno´where we unfortunately just missed the changing of the guard. We walked all along the water-front, went through the shopping center that was built into the side of a cliff, saw the Canadian Embassy, walked through downtown and Chinatown, and spent some time in Parque Kennedy which is filled with small shops, open-air cafes and fast-food joints. We also saw 'Huaca Pucllana', the active archaeological site in Miraflores dating from AD 400.

The drivers here are crazy! In the past we have been to bigger cities with greater numbers of people and far more vehicles on the roads however they have always seemed to function in what I would call ¨organized chaos¨. This does not exist here in Lima, it is strickly chaos. Drivers move about wherever they want on the road, pounding on their horns and screeching to a halt when someone else cuts infront of them. On roads where there aren´t any street lights to conduct and regulate the flow of traffic, people just decide when it is their turn to cross as there is no determined right-of-way and, if you are a pedestrian, you better haul ass across as no one is stopping for you. We almost got hit today outside the ¨Plaza San Martin¨by a driver who didn´t care to acknowledge the fact that we had a walk light. It isn´t surprising that we have seen the aftermath of a few accidents in our short time here.

We are off again tomorrow, this time to Ica, Peru to go Sandboarding and Dune Buggying (it was recommended to us by Charlotte from Holland). Sounds like fun! We aren´t sure how long we will spend there as it is supposedly quite a small town with not much going on - probably 2 or 3 days at the most. From there we will be heading to Nasca where we plan to take a plane over the famous ¨Nazca Lines of Peru¨. We will be moving quite quickly now in order to see everything we want to see between here and Cuzco where we will be hiking the Inca Trail in the middle of December. Wow, time goes by fast!

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